It’s been a number of years since I worked for a large organisation, but I get the sense that employees are still largely monitored by the number of hours they are “present” – i.e., on site, in the office, or logged in to the network. But I think we worked out some time ago that merely “turning up” is not a reliable measure of individual contribution, output or efficiency.

No doubt, the rhythm of the working day has changed – the “clock on/clock off” pattern is not what it was even when I first joined the workforce, where we still had strict core minimum hours (albeit with flexi-time and overtime). So although many employees may feel like they are working longer hours (especially in the “always on” environment of e-mail, smart phones and remote working), I’m not sure how many of them would say they are working at optimum capacity or maximum efficiency.

For example, the amount of time employees spend on social media (the new smoko?) should not be ignored as a contributory factor in the lack of productivity gains. Yes, I know there are arguments for saying that giving employees access to Facebook et al can be beneficial in terms of research, training and development, networking, connecting with prospective customers and suppliers, and informally advocating for the companies they work for; plus, personal time spent on social media and the internet (e.g., booking a holiday) while at work may mean taking less actual time out of the office.

But let’s try to put this into perspective. With the amount of workplace technology employees have access to (plus the lowering costs of that technology), why are we still not experiencing corresponding productivity gains?

The first problem is poor deployment of that technology. How many times have you spoken to a call centre, only to be told “the system is slow today”, or worse, “the system won’t let me do that”? The second problem is poor training on the technology – if employees don’t have enough of a core understanding of the software and applications they are expected to use (I don’t even mean we all need to be coders or programmers – although they are core skills everyone will need to have in future), how will they be able to make best use of that technology? The third problem is poor alignment of technology – whether caused by legacy systems, so-called tech debt, or simply systems that do not talk to one another. I recently spent over 2 hours at my local bank trying to open a new term deposit – even though I have been a customer of the bank for more than 15 years, and have multiple products and accounts with this bank, I was told this particular product still runs on a standalone DOS platform, and the back-end is not integrated into the other customer information and account management platforms.

Finally, don’t get me started about the NBN, possibly one of the main hurdles to increased productivity for SMEs, freelancers and remote workers. In my inner-city area of Melbourne, I’ve now been told that I won’t be able to access NBN for at least another 15-18 months – much, much, much later than the original announcements. Meanwhile, since NBN launched, my neighbourhood has experienced higher density dwellings, more people working from home, more streaming and on-demand services, and more tech companies moving into the area. So legacy ADSL is being choked, and there is no improvement to existing infrastructure pending the NBN. It feels like I am in a Catch 22, and that the NBN has been over-sold, based on the feedback I read on social media and elsewhere. I’ve just come back from 2 weeks’ holiday in the South Island of New Zealand, and despite staying in some fairly remote areas, I generally enjoyed much faster internet than I get at home in Melbourne.

With every new app I download, install or have to use, I keep asking myself: “Do I feel more productive than I did before I downloaded it?” Comparing notes with a business associate the other week, I realised that the arsenal of daily tools I use continues to expand since I last blogged about this topic. At times, I feel like Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times” trying to keep on top of this digital production line.

In particular, the number of communication tools (instant messaging and conferencing) keeps growing; document and file management continues to be a battle largely between operating systems; and most collaboration tools struggle to make the UI as seamless as it should be – so that the UX is all about the “process” for creating, updating and maintaining projects, and not the quality of outcomes.

So, as an update to my previous blog, here’s a few thoughts on recent experiences:

Meetings/Chat

Added to my regular list are Telegram, WeChat, UberConference, BlueJean and RingCentral. Meanwhile, Microsoft (Skype), Google (Hangouts) and Apple (FaceTime) all compete for our communications. (Even Amazon has its own conferencing app, Chime.) One of the biggest challenges I find is browser compatibility (when using via a desktop or laptop) – presumably because vendors want to tie you into their proprietary software eco-systems.

Project Management/Collaboration

Still looking for the perfect solution…. Products are either so hard-coded that they are inflexible, or so customisable that they can lack structure. I suspect that part of the problem is projects are still seen as linear (which makes sense from a progress and completion perspective), but we collaborate at multiple levels and tasks (with corresponding inter-dependencies), which don’t fit into a neat project timeline.

Document/File Management

I seem to spend most of my day in Google Drive (largely thanks to Gmail and Drive) and Dropbox (which continues to improve). I find Dropbox more robust than Google Drive for file management and document sharing, and it continues to expand the types of files it supports and other functionality. Whereas, with Drive, version control is a bit clunky, unless the document was first created in Google Docs.

Productivity

Overall, Google Docs is still not as good as MS Office (but does anyone use OneDrive, let alone iCloud/iWorks, for document sharing or collaboration?)

One thing I have noticed is that my use of native iOS productivity tools has dropped off completely – if anything, I am now using more MS Office iOS apps (e.g., Lens, OneNote), and some Google Docs apps for iOS. Plus the DropboxPaper iOS app.

CRM

I’m starting to use Zoho (having outgrown Streak) – and I’ve heard that there is even a Zoho plug-in that connects with LinkedIn, which I shall soon be exploring. But as with Collaboration tools, getting the right balance between rigidity and flexibility is not easy.

The combo of Cloud+Wireless+Mobile has transformed the way I work. For one thing, storing, accessing and sharing documents is now so much easier than having to send everything as bulky e-mail attachments tethered to a hard drive. However, as an independent consultant, with every new project, business or client I work with, I find I need to use different collaboration tools to be compatible with their workflow, IT systems or platform preferences. Great as all these collaborative apps are, the fact that many don’t talk to one another makes it feel like I am being sucked into a mess of virtual cables that don’t interconnect. Sort of “Spaghetti in the Cloud”.

It feels like all my apps are unconnected yet tangled up in the Cloud (Image sourced from Flickr)

There is definitely a battle to dominate enterprise collaboration, with Facebook’s recent launch of Workplace to compete with the likes of Slack, the anticipated revamp of Microsoft’s Office 365 Groups when Yammer is decommissioned in early 2017, and Atlassian’s own HipChat. But aside from enterprise social media and chat, there is now competition across multiple collaboration tools. Here is a list of just a few of the productivity apps I have been exposed to across the various projects I work on:

Meetings/Chat

Skype for Business (formerly Lync)

Google Hangouts

Zoom

Cisco WebEx for iOS

GoToMeeting

Fuze

Join.Me

WhatsApp

Project Management

Samepage

Mightybell

Basecamp

Trello

Smartsheet

Document/File Management

Dropbox

OneDrive

Google Drive

FileApp (iOS)

FileManager Pro (iOS)

Docs To Go (iOS)

Productivity

Google Docs

Apple iWork

Microsoft Office 365

SlideShark

CRM

SalesForce

Insightly

Streak

And this list doesn’t include single-purpose apps like POP, Simplist and Ideament that allow some project sharing; the entire suite of creative, social media, blogging and CMS tools that organisations increasingly embrace as enterprise solutions; and the growing number of apps that support text, photo and videoediting on mobile devices.

While some of these tools support content, file, document and even project sharing from within the app, a lot of functionality is native, and therefore embedded, and is not transferable. So I end up having to learn (and unlearn) the features, quirks and limitations of each one, project by project, client by client.

As I have written before, based on my experience of creating digital music (plus using and beta-testing iOS apps), an app like Audiobus set the standard for product compatibility and content integration. So much so, that Apple ended up supporting Inter-App Audio as a new standard for iOS. Since Audiobus, similar apps have emerged that allow audio and MIDI apps to run together on a single device, and to share/stream content between different mobile devices and desktop DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations): Midiflow, musicIO, AudioShare, AudioCopy, Audreio, studiomux etc.

If only enterprise software and productivity app developers would have a similar approach to product design and collaboration….